Darkness, hold him
by Geale
Summary: It is in times of war that love matters the most. One evening, nine people. Mainly Bill/Draco, but revolves around many others too. Some slash, a smidgen of het. Rated for safety.


**Summary: **It is in times of war that love matters the most. One evening, nine people. Mainly Bill/Draco, but revolves around many others too. Some slash, a smidgen of het.

**Rating: **M, for safety

**Warnings:** slash & mild het.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**A/N:** I wanted to try this pairing... I don't know if anyone reads it. I wanted to try multiple POVs... I liked it.

With love.

**-o-**

**Darkness, hold him**

**-o-**

"This is mental." Ron sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "You can't be serious. I'm not living with _him_."

Bill bit back a retort. Anger hit him so very easily these days; ever since Greyback's attack on him, all his feelings lay simmering under the surface, just beneath his skin, only waiting for a chance to come out and play. He glanced over at the door where a slim figure stood huddled in Bill's own, wide cloak.

"You don't have much of a choice," said Bill, trying to keep his voice even.

"There now." His mum planted a large steaming casserole on the scrubbed wooden table. "I will have no quarrelling over dinner."

Ron huffed in response and shot Draco a glare filled with so much contempt that Bill very nearly snarled at him.

**-ooo-**

He'd never imagined himself having dinner with the Weasleys and – who else? –Potter and Granger. Yes, the kitchen was a mess: there was a stack of rusty cauldrons in a corner, the cutlery made odd, clanking noises in a half open drawer, a large peculiar clock with only one hand was mounted to the wall and it was ticking away madly; and the paint was peeling in places. Still, it was warm and – Draco swallowed, and not because he'd just done a grand job of chewing a cherry tomato – _cosy._

Malfoy's were no great adherents of cosy. Marble never did that for you.

He stole a glance at Bill to his left. His jaws were tightly clenched – up to the point when Draco doubted they would allow for any food to pass through to his stomach.

Bill must have felt his gaze on him because his blue eyes met Draco's and he allowed for a small smile to curve his lips.

Draco's heart skipped a beat.

**-ooo-**

Hermione would have liked to say something before. She would very much have liked telling Ron to shut up because Draco was obviously in dire need of help. But seeing Ron now, fuming and stabbing his potatoes with such force that he was no doubt leaving marks in the porcelain had her thinking both twice and thrice before opening her mouth.

She was not so sure that he'd listen to her, no matter how reasonably she spoke.

Hermione was very tired of always being reasonable.

**-ooo-**

"Can we... get out of here?"

Ginny turned to him and smiled. Harry loved it when she smiled. He also knew that was a terribly cheesy thing to think.

She nodded and whispered, she too, "I'd like that."

Under the table, Harry twined their fingers together. Her smile turned slightly mischievous.

Harry's mouth went dry.

**-ooo-**

"What's he doing here anyway? Mum, you can't..."

"Enough, Ronald," said his mother, effectively cutting him off. "Draco needs a place to stay for a while and we all agreed that he will be safe with us." She did not like being stern, but as her family grew, her preconceived opinions and prejudices regarding the upbringing of children had been somewhat challenged.

"You just want to fatten him up," grumbled Ron.

"Well, look at him! He's skin and bones." she gestured at the pale boy still seated at the table. She could see in the way his mouth twitched that he did not like being spoken of in such a fashion, but no matter how much Malfoy blood that ran in his veins, she was intent on treating him like she did any of her children.

Molly Weasley was quite certain that Draco Malfoy had never been treated as a child.

"So is Harry but you're not pestering him about it any more!"

In the corner of her eye, she saw Bill take a step towards his youngest brother. She made sure to send him a warning look. Turning back to Ron, she wished she knew what to say.

It was true that mothers were not omniscient. It was also true that they always did their very best to never reveal that fact.

**-ooo-**

"You're not the one Voldemort threatened," said Fred. He was lounging in the sagging armchair in the sitting room.

"I still wouldn't have done it." Ron stood by the window overlooking the garden, but his attention was not on the flowers outside, or the garden gnomes chasing each other across the grass.

"No?" George raised an eyebrow. "It wasn't _your _family that dear old Voldy threatened to blast into pieces..."

"I still wouldn't have done it," maintained Ron, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice now.

"Hm..." said Fred, and there was suddenly a twinkle in his eyes, "tell us, Ron, what _would_ you have done if you knew that we, your beloved brothers, would suffer at his hands if you didn't complete the mission that you'd been assigned?"

Ron muttered something inaudible.

Fred rolled his eyes. "Oh, well... In any case, George and I can only take so many rounds of _Crucio _before we get really angry..."

"I wonder," mused George from his place on the sofa, "if the Nosebleed Nougat would work on Voldemort?"

Hermione bit her lip to keep from smiling since it really was not appropriate. She also did not scold him.

"That's disgusting," said Ron.

"Mmm..." agreed Fred with a dreamy expression. "Disgusting and intriguing."

"There's no better combination..."

"In any case," said Ron, "Malfoy's a git and a Death Eater and I would never have killed Dumbledore!"

"Well, to be fair..." She could not keep quiet any longer. "He _didn't _kill Dumbledore..."

Ron snorted. "I bet the _Avada Kedavra _was on the tip of his tongue."

"Dumbledore knew he wouldn't do it," said George, "In any case, the old man was already dying, wasn't he?"

"But Draco didn't know that," said Hermione.

George's brown eyes landed on her. He smiled. "True."

Hermione swallowed.

It worried her how George's smile always made her stumble on a breath.

**-ooo-**

Draco tugged at his sleeve but Bill's hand landed on his wrist.

"Don't."

Looking up at him, Draco found that speaking was not very easy. "Don't what?"

"Don't cover it up." Bill smiled a soft smile. "_You_ know it's there. _I_ know it's there. What's there to hide?"

Draco had never been good with words. Sure, he knew how to taunt and tease, and curse and threaten, but other types of words often eluded him. Words that expressed gratitude or sorrow, or guilt or appreciation.

He'd observed Potter with the Weasley girl during dinner.

Potter surely knew all those words. And from what Draco had seen, hearing them had made Ginny smile.

Draco never wanted Bill to stop smiling.

**-ooo-**

They had set up a camp bed, similar to the one Harry slept in, in Bill's room. She had left freshly laundered bedclothes and two extra pillows and a quilt in a neat pile atop it. She wondered, though, now that she made her way downstairs to wait for Arthur to come home from the Ministry, whether Draco would even touch his bed tonight.

No, she might not be omniscient but she knew attraction when she saw it.

She did _not_ know if Draco had turned seventeen yet. She had firmly decided not to ask.

The precious bubble of safety in which they lived was shrinking. On the other side of the complicated web of wards that cradled The Burrow, evil was ripping the world apart.

Molly briefly closed her eyes and forced herself to draw a series of slow and steady breaths.

Let them live as they pleased.

_Oh, let them live!_

**-ooo-**

Ginny had not returned yet. Hermione hugged her knees to her chest and stared into the bluish night. She was off with Harry somewhere, probably. But somewhere could not be anywhere. There was the house and the garden and the orchard to choose from; beyond that none of them was allowed to tread.

She felt empty. Her wand lay at her feet on the bed. There would come a time, she was fairly sure, when she would have only that and her own wits to rely on, but she did not see how either could help her now.

How could a single piece of wood, vine and dragon heartstring, ten and three-quarter inches, make her skin stop tingle every time George happened to look her way?

**-ooo-**

Contrary to what most people seemed to believe, Ron was not stupid. He knew that Malfoy had been under the Order's surveillance for so long now that it was probably in order (ha ha...) to consider him part of the family. He bet Bill would like that.

Yeah, Ron knew what was going on downstairs in his brother's bedroom. Or he had a pretty good idea, at least.

It was Ron who had been the first to admit to a significant dose of relief when Fleur and Bill broke up and she had laid her hand on a Portkey that had sent her back to France. Not because he did not like her, but because sporting a hard-on whenever your brother's girlfriend appeared was not very convenient. After a while, he'd gotten used to her and had learnt to control his reaction to her presence, but still it had come as a blessing when their short-lived romance had come to an end.

However, it was still unfair that someone who had not been keener to love Fleur had been offered a chance with her.

Ron thought of Hermione. Maybe he loved her.

He thought of another of his brothers.

Just like his mother, Ron knew a good deal of things.

**-ooo-**

"Harry!" Ginny shuddered in his arms, torn between a giggle and a gasp. "What if they see us?"

"They won't."

She squinted at him in the failing daylight; the last streaks of sunlight painted the horizon a greenish yellow in the west but behind the shrubbery, no lamplight reached them. "Where did Harry go?"

He smiled. His hands were still on her waist, had not moved an inch since he had attempted to draw her close. "I'm right here."

"Yes I can..." she bit her lip, "see that," she concluded.

His smile broadened into a grin. "No you can't. Neither of us can see a bloody thing out here."

This time she did giggle. "All right, I can feel it." She never blushed; she had good genes.

"Gin... I really..." Some of his sudden boldness melted away into the night and he did not finish his sentence.

She covered his hands with hers. "Me too."

**-ooo-**

"What d'you reckon it'll be like, the war?"

"For whom?"

Fred shrugged against the back of the armchair. "For all of us, I suppose."

George shook his head. "Don't know."

Silence stretched between them for a while. The house was embedded in darkness and the first stars were glinting in the sky above.

"We'll do it together, yeah?"

"Do what?"

"Fight, of course. Or isn't that what you do in wars?"

As he looked at his brother, George must smile. "You think I'd go to war without you?"

Fred looked pleased.

Why his twin had felt the need to ask in the first place, George could not say.

**-ooo-**

The longest of his scars stretched from the base of his neck to the base of his spine. Draco was tempted to trace it with a forefinger but he did not.

Bill was completely naked. He lay on his belly, his face turned to Draco, and with his long hair spilling over a shoulder. "Do I look like a pure-blood?"

Draco opened his mouth but closed it again. Probably saying that he looked like he'd spent a day with an angry dragon would not go down too well. Besides, wrong brother. "You look like a Weasley."

Bill laughed, and in a fluid motion turned onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow. Draco's gaze was inevitably drawn downwards and his breath hitched when he saw just how much Bill liked lying in bed, talking to him.

He lifted a hand, and for a moment it hovered above the swollen length, but then he encircled it with his fingers. "For how long have you wanted this?" he asked.

The light in Bill's eyes was sharp. "I've been watching you for a long time," he said simply.

Draco nodded. He stroked the firm flesh, both pleased and relieved when the older man stretched out properly beside him, his eyes falling shut. Almost. He watched Draco's every move through nearly-slitted eyes and the feral glint in the blue held Draco captive as he urged Bill to yield fully to the pleasure, all the while knowing that he would never succeed.

He was a monster, half-man, half-wolf, with scars and a temper to prove it.

Draco shifted closer, feeding off the energy that buzzed around Bill. There was danger here, he knew, and he had always desired danger. Until danger sought him out and scared him senseless.

The muscles along Bill's arms corded as he tensed and flexed his hands before fisting them in the sheets. Draco sped up his ministrations, gave Bill's hard length a tug and wondered if it was any different when the moon was full.

**-ooo-**

Bill raised himself up a little, but not enough to slide out of Draco.

"Look at me."

Draco's mouth was dry from biting into the pillow to keep from screaming as Bill filled him. He did not want to look.

"Look at me."

Slowly he turned his head to the side. Bill lowered himself down again but this time he draped himself over Draco's shoulder so that he could look him in the eye.

"Did it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Was it pleasurable at all?"

Draco did not answer, _could not _answer. He swallowed hard. Pain, even if it was of the kind that followed the destruction of the walls you had built around your heart was best bottled up and stored away. Pain was like love, too unreliable to be trusted.

After a while, Bill heaved himself up and left cool, sticky release trickling down Draco's thighs.

This would be the end, then.

But the night was still waxing and Potter had yet to step up to the challenge.

Draco squeezed his eyes shut as Bill pulled the covers over them both and scooped him up in his arms. Lips brushed his cheek, kissed away tears that Draco had not known when to shed in all those years past. Because Malfoys never cried.

If Voldemort could see him now.

There were some monsters doomed to be hated, and some doomed to be...

**End**


End file.
